[147] World Scripture - Liberation - 1. The State of Inner Freedom

[대태양/김현수]

World Scripture Ⅱ

Part Two - Sin and Salvation
Chapter 7 - Salvation, Liberation, Enlightenment
5) Liberation

The spiritual freedom experienced by people who are released from the fetters of desires and attachments to worldly things is called Liberation (moksha). It is an inner experience of freedom that can arise regardless of the person’s external circumstances: The saint is free even in prison, while people living in comfort and affluence may be caught in dire bondage to runaway desires, addictions, and bad relationships. The Christian scriptures speak of a comparable experience of Christian liberty.

Yet liberation goes beyond the individual. Jesus spoke about liberating the prisoners and a Kingdom of freedom. When people live in the spirit of love and self-giving, they can be very free with one another. If everyone in a family or society enjoyed the inner freedom of a God-centered life, they then could live and act in freedom. Therefore, Father Moon teaches, liberating others also expands our own realm of liberation. That liberation should expand to encompass societies, nations, the entire world, and beyond to the realm of God. Jewish Kabbalistic doctrine describes the task of liberating of the “divine sparks” residing in each thing, that they may rise up and rejoin the divine unity. God’s liberation is contingent upon human liberation, teaches Father Moon, because human suffering and oppression binds God in fetters of grief and pain. Liberating humanity also liberates God, and when God is liberated, humanity can be truly free.

1. The State of Inner Freedom

World Scripture

That disciplined man with joy and light within, Becomes one with God and reaches the freedom that is God’s.

Bhagavad-Gita 5.24 (Hinduism)

Desire is a chain, shackled to the world, and it is a difficult one to break. But once that is done, there is no more grief and no more longing; the stream has been cut off and there are no more chains.

Sutta Nipata 948 (Buddhism)

The fetters of the heart are broken, all doubts are resolved, and all works cease to bear fruit [of karma], when He is beheld who is both high and low. Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.8 (Hinduism)

Yea, happily he lives, the brahmin set free, Whom lusts defile not, who is cooled and loosed from bonds, Who has all barriers burst, restraining his heart’s pain. Happy the calm one lives who wins peace of mind.

Anguttara Nikaya 1.137 (Buddhism)

Open yourself, create free space; release the bound one from his bonds! Like a newborn child, freed from the womb, be free to move on every path! Atharva Veda 6.121.4 (Hinduism) Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3.17

Immediately after attaining release from all karmas, the soul goes up to the end of the universe. Previously driven [by karmas], the soul is free from the bonds of attachment, the chains have been snapped, and it is its nature to dart upwards. The liberated self, in the absence of the karmas which had led it to wander in different directions in different states of existence, darts upwards as its nature is to go up.

Ratnakarandasravakacara 10 (Jainism)

The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.

John 3.8

He whose corruptions are destroyed, he who is not attached to food, he who has Deliverance, which is void and signless, as his object—his path, like that of birds in the air, cannot be traced.

15 Dhammapada 93 (Buddhism)

One that the Lord’s command in mind cherishes, Is truly to be called Jivan-mukta (liberated while living). To such a one are joy and sorrow alike; Ever in joy, never feels he sorrow. Gold and a clod of earth to him are alike, As also nectar and foul-tasting poison. To him are honor and dishonor alike; Alike also pauper and prince. One that such a way practices, Says Nanak, a Jivan-mukta may be called.

Adi Granth, Gauri Sukhmani 9, M.5, p. 275 (Sikhism)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

According to the perspective of religion, humanity does not dwell in a liberated state. People today do not live in the realm of God’s freedom; rather they are constrained within the fallen world under Satan’s control. In other words, the world is in bondage. Christians in the established churches and we Unification Church members have the same understanding: we are in bondage.

This bondage is manifest as the persistent struggle between our mind and body. If human beings were made from the beginning with their minds and bodies in conflict, it would be absolutely impossible for them to perfect their character or attain liberation. In fact however, humans were created with harmonious internal elements, by which they could have attained the ideal state of liberation. They only fell into bondage during the course of their growth, when as a result of the Fall they were driven into a state of disorder, where we remain to this day. Therefore, it is entirely possible to be liberated from bondage and attain the ideal state.

(85:227, March 3, 1976)

What does it feel like to experience the being of God? The interminable struggle between your mind and the body, which formerly plagued your self-centered life when you put yourself as number one in everything you did, will completely disappear. Instead, you will live the life that God wants you to live: living for the sake of others and giving yourself for the whole. Then, true love will continue forever, and God’s joy will be displayed in the spirit world. You will experience such satisfaction and happiness as you have never felt before, because it will be connected to the whole. Thus, you will discover yourself in the state of liberation.

(329:301-02, August 11, 2000)

The body has a limit, but the mind is infinite. The world of the mind is beyond form, beyond any philosophy or viewpoint. Still greater than the mind is the world of the heart. It has no restrictions. The world of the mind has certain restraints, conditioned by its relationships. Yet nothing can restrain the world of the heart. What could ever restrain a parent’s love for his or her children? Even a barrier as daunting as a huge mountain cannot block the way.

(7:246, September 20, 1959)

It is written in the Bible, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Cor. 3.17) The Father is a Spirit of freedom, liberation and unification. How, then, can the spirit of freedom, which transcends any trials, be instilled in your hearts? How can you find the point of liberation where you overcome all the walls of suffering? When will you experience that peaceful moment of total unification, which is your ultimate hope?

In thinking about these important questions, consider that God is not free. Since God is not free, liberated and unified, the freedom people pursue today is not true freedom. The liberation people are proclaiming is not complete liberation, and the unification people are promoting is not complete unification…

God created us. Therefore, the complete freedom, liberation and unification that we desire can be realized only when God is free and becomes the master of liberation and unification. God’s freedom, liberation and unification are the standards for humanity’s freedom, liberation and unification; that is only logical.

(4:314-15, October 12, 1958)